Emerald Marshmallows
by Sarie Cigam
Summary: Draco is in an angsty mood, and he's contemplating his past. Then, someone gives him a gift... angst warning! minor language warning. R


Disclaimer: I don't own Draco. I wish I did... *prr* ahh, Draco... errm... well... on with the fic! Eheh...  
  
Draco sat alone at the window in a large, green-cushioned claw-foot chair, watching snowflakes fall from a slate-gray sky to carpet the Hogwarts grounds in a pillowy blanket. Just the thought of the freezing substance and the chilling winds howling outside was enough to set him shivering in his warm gray robe. His eyes, cold and hard as the ice forming on the ledge beyond his window, scanned the rest of the common room, taking stock of who was there and who was hiding from him. Lately they all hid, even those he hadn't ever been cruel too.  
  
Draco could admit his failings. He knew he was a harsh, evil bastard at times, but he also felt other things that his upbringing wouldn't let him show. His father, Lucius, expected only coldness from his son, and so Draco acted accordingly so as not to be beaten or locked in his room. He had learned from early childhood that his family would accept no kindness. He had once tried to give an expensive teddy bear that he didn't think he needed to another child, and his father had smacked his hand and harshly told him that if he tried to waste another gift on a mudblood poor child, he would have his favorite snake plushie stolen from him and burned. Draco hadn't given anything to anyone since, unless it was a sneer or insult.  
  
As he progressed through Hogwarts, his actions grew worse. Now he had hoards of people, mudblood and pureblood alike, to vent his pent-up emotions on, and the Potter child only made things worse. In his private moments, deep beneath the black layers of his heart, he knew he was jealous of Harry. If Draco's father and mother had just gotten themselves killed, he wouldn't be what he was now. He would have the attention of everyone and friendships like the ones Harry held with half the school, and he would be loved. Draco had never been loved in his life. His mother never held him; he had a nurse. His father was never fatherly, hitting him rather than hugging, never taking him to quiddich matches, never teaching his son normal values. To them, Draco was a status item. Because he was taught at Hogwarts, the Malfoy name gained more prestige. Because he was made seeker, the Malfoy name held talent. He would carry on the family name, like some pedigree dog, passing on the same bad  
temperament that his father gave to him.  
  
Draco figured it was too late to turn back now. His bad nature was so deeply ingrained in him that he knew it would never rub out. He was doomed to become a death eater and try to kill Harry, doomed to die at the hands of some saintly auror or other. So he sat in his green chair, watching the ice as cold as his heart, rejecting the fireside seats Crabbe and Goyle were using. They were roasting marshmallows they had robbed from some first-year, grunting like savages as they stuffed the gooey morsels into their massive mouths. They had tried to offer Draco one, but he had snapped at them and sat alone.  
  
His brooding, angry, frigid thoughts were interrupted suddenly when a thin waif of a girl, no taller than Colin Creevy but at least as old as Draco, offered him a steaming mug of Hot Chocolate filled to the brim with green mini marshmallows. She was absolutely silent, but offered the mug without fear, ignorant of Draco's reputation. She was completely innocent, her eyes held no animosity, and Draco wondered what in god's name she was doing in Slythrin. She seemed untouched by anger or rage, unscarred by the claws of anger, but she was undeniably a Slythrin; she wore the Slythrin uniform and patch on her black robes.  
  
"You looked cold," was all she said before turning and gliding back across the room to the girl's dormitories. Draco had accepted the chocolate without thinking, the half-formed insults dying on his lips. No one had ever given him anything for no reason, not ever. Usually he got things through servants and bullying, not through kindness. He didn't even know the girl who had brought the mug to him.  
  
"Green marshmallows," he mused, his voice low so that no one else could hear, "I haven't had green marshmallows since my first year, when we stole some... I haven't had time for such things. Marshmallows are for sissies like Potter." Yet he drank the chocolate, marshmallows and all, quickly wiping the foam from his mouth. It was good, like something somebody's mother would make on a rainy day, but Draco didn't know what that was like.  
  
"Hmph. Probably didn't want to get sneered at later," Draco muttered half-heartedly, trying to find some way of insulting the girl with the chocolate. He swirled the dark brown dregs around slightly, recalling Divinations classes earlier in the year, in which he had snidely remarked that one Hufflepuff's cup spelled `Mudblood' out as clear as day. That memory was painful, and remorse was something Draco had never known.  
  
He stared again out at the falling snow, sighing and resting his chin on his arm. He vehemently wished that the whole school wasn't trapped inside from the snow, because quiet days like these always made him muse. The chocolate only worsened things. The girl with the chocolate's accepting kindness had shaken him, as had her eyes. He had never seen eyes so innocent. His eyes hadn't been innocent since he could remember. Innocence was for the weak. He wasn't weak; he was a Malfoy. Malfoys ate weaklings for lunch.  
  
Come to think of it, he thought, kindness was for weaklings according to his father. All of he kind people Draco had seen, though, had the strongest souls. Cedric was kind, and he had died nobly. Harry was kind, and he was stronger than Draco. Dumbledor was kind, and he was still alive, while Voldemort was not. Draco suddenly realized that his father had been wrong in everything he had ever taught his son, and suddenly felt a wrenching pang of guild and sorrow for all the wrong things he had ever done.  
  
Slowly Draco stood up, carelessly brushing back his white-blond, perfectly parted hair into a more comfortable style. He walked to where Crabbe and Goyle sat and stood in front of them, one eyebrow raised. "Didn't you save any for me? Move over and let me sit."  
  
Crabbe and Goyle looked at each other, confused, but obeyed, handing Draco the bag of marshmallows. He accepted them and thanked his cronies, which only served to further confuse them. Draco Malfoy did not say thank you.  
  
"I think the weather is changing," Draco commented carelessly, inspecting the white, sugary confection in his hand. "Funny, what green marshmallows do to you." 


End file.
